The House of Fabius Amandus, facing onto the Via dell'Abbondanza, is a small house in Regio I that is particularly instructive in showing how the standard rooms of a Pompeian house could be arranged within a restricted plot. The building is long and narrow and also extended onto an upper floor, with a balcony overlooking the street. Parts of the structure, including the façade and the rim of the impluvium, date to the second century BC. The house probably belonged originally to the larger property of the neighbouring House of Paquius Proculus, from which it may have been separated during the first century BC.
The modern name derives from electoral inscriptions found near the entrance in which the names Fabius and Amandio appear. The precise identification of the ancient owner is nevertheless a reconstruction based on epigraphic evidence and should not be regarded as certain. The house had two entrances: doorway I.7.2 led into a narrow room with stairs to the upper floor, while I.7.3 formed the principal entrance to the dwelling. Numerous weaving implements were found in the side room, prompting the suggestion that craft activity connected with textile production took place here.
Passing through the fauces, one enters the atrium directly. Unlike those of larger houses, it has none of the customary rooms along its sides. At the centre is the impluvium, which collected rainwater and was decorated with mosaic elements; the mouth of the cistern was aligned with the entrance. The atrium walls chiefly preserve Fourth Style decoration, with broad red fields and landscape and sacred scenes. Most of the surviving painted schemes belong to this final decorative phase, although traces of earlier Second Style work have been identified in some rooms.
The limited space produced an arrangement unlike that of large aristocratic domus. A cubiculum occupied the south-east corner of the atrium, in the position where a more spacious house might have had a tablinum. A narrow passage then led to the rear of the building. On the side towards the Via dell'Abbondanza was a room for dining, generally identified as a triclinium. It had Fourth Style decoration and a signinum pavement enriched with tesserae and marble fragments.
The most distinctive feature of the rear area is the small viridarium, which served both as a garden and as a light well for the surrounding rooms. The green space consisted of a raised bed about half a metre high and included a small semicircular basin supplied with water from the roof. Garden paintings and vegetal motifs on the walls were designed to make this very restricted space appear larger. Studies of Pompeian garden painting also record vegetal decoration on the east and south walls.
Other small service and living rooms opened around the viridarium, including a kitchen and a room interpreted as either a bedroom or private reception room, positioned to look directly onto the garden. A second staircase led to the upper-floor rooms, confirming the importance of vertical development in compensating for the limited size of the plot. The long balcony overlooking the Via dell'Abbondanza provided a substantial extension to the living space.
Excavation began in 1911–1912 and continued in 1923, bringing the house and much of its decoration to light. Despite its modest size, the House of Fabius Amandus is therefore especially valuable for understanding Pompeian domestic life beyond the grand aristocratic residences. Its spatial organisation, use of the upper floor, possible craft activity and small painted garden show how carefully every part of the building was employed.
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